


Tuesday's Child

by hiddencait



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26394220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: A musing on a nursery rhyme.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5
Collections: Fandom Giftbox 2020





	Tuesday's Child

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kira_katrine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kira_katrine/gifts).



> I'm not sure where this came from, but it just seemed to fit Grace. I hope you enjoy it!

**Tuesday’s Child**

_Monday's child is fair of face_

_Tuesday's child is full of grace_

_Wednesday's child is full of woe_

_Thursday's child has far to go,_

_Friday's child is loving and giving,_

_Saturday's child works hard for a living,_

_And the child that is born on the Sabbath day_

_Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay._

_-Unknown_

Grace does not remember which day she was born – if born is even the proper word for the moment she came into being. She does not remember a time or a place before Sir Reginald awoke her; she is and has always been simply here: in this massive house with the children and their father.

She takes no notice of the years with regard to her own life, ageless as she is. What would she do with a birthday? It’s just another inconsequential marker of time. And time is… unimportant to her. It’s measured only by the height of her charges, the days spent with those she loves despite knowing she was, perhaps, not _intended_ to love them.

Was not intended to be capable of love for that matter.

Considering that, it isn’t surprising that she keeps no record of herself. Where would she put it, even if she did? She has no room like the children, no sanctuary all her own aside from a balcony walled in priceless works of art, and a chair set aside for only her.

Still, she knows herself to be surprisingly sentimental, despite or perhaps _in spite_ of her programming. It’s that sentimentality that sparks her interest in a silly nursery rhyme. One she uses to teach the children the days of the week, knowing they at least will need to mark the passage of their own lives. If only to know what day their father expects some task or assignment to be completed. (The date of their collective births isn’t celebrated, of course; Sir Reginald despises such occasions.)

It’s a simple poem, though an old one, or so she guesses by the lack of an author in the little book of stories she finds it in. One old enough that its origins are long forgotten by everyone, perhaps even the rhyme itself.

It is timeless and ephemeral, and that appeals to her on a level that may go deeper than coding and the wires at her core.

She doubts it is the source of her name; her maker hardly seems inclined to such whimsy. But she finds she wishes it was.

Perhaps she is no one’s daughter, but in the privacy of her own little corner, while she stiches away at her embroidery, she can pretend she is Tuesday’s child. That she belongs to someone, somewhere by that name. That someone might cherish the thought of her as their own.

She can pretend that such pretense is enough.


End file.
